I signed up to do the Express 27 Nationals on Libra since Elise is due to be back basically during the event. Libra had signed up for a beer can race and I joined as I wanted some practice.
I did foredeck and a fairly appalling job. Will from Motorcycle Irene was on the boat. He is an amazing professional sailor, and the top sailor in the fleet (or any fleet he sails in regularly for that matter). He is one of my sailing heroes.
It was incredible to watch him do tactics in the light air start, handling currents on both the upwind and the downwind legs and optimizing trim, constantly optimizing. We won the race and he had a lot to do with it.
Specifically what I learned:
- focus helps. Will is singlemindedly focused on the race at hand
- every detail needs to be paid attention to: light helm movement in the light air, constant trim of the jib and main TOGETHER (to optimize the air flow between the two of them and balance the boat better), constant small movement of the pole and sheet on the downwind, as well as trimming the main. Not one second is spent without looking to see if something needs to be optimized because there is a small change in conditions - always weighing benefits of moving weight about and gains from that change
- he trims the spinnaker a lot with the twings. It is less drastic changes and doesn't require as much effort to move the pole back and forth. I really liked that and on Libra both twings are ringed so that you can easily trim them from the cockpit. I may make that change on Elise.
Fantastic day on the water, and great dinner sharing impressions with Marcia and Sergey.
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